My TakeNational security matters risk overshadowing ‘good stories’

The bid to rebuild Hong Kong’s international image as it opens up after three years of self-imposed isolation is gathering pace. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu told a forum last week he and his team will be running around the world to show the city is “back on the centre stage”. They will be “telling good stories”.

Hong Kong’s reputation as an international city took a battering during the pandemic. Sweeping social-distancing rules and travel curbs left it a shadow of its former self. The lifting of restrictions and opening of borders offers an opportunity to bounce back.

Tourists and business travellers are returning. Numerous international events are scheduled. The city is finally emerging from the wilderness. But it is not only the pandemic policies that have changed global perceptions of Hong Kong. The city’s political transformation has also had an impact.

Beijing’s passing of a national security law in 2020, after months of civil unrest the previous year, was followed by arrests of opposition figures and a new political system governed by “patriots”. Hundreds of cases are still progressing through the courts.

Unlike the Covid-19 restrictions, there is no sign of the national security drive relenting. There had been hopes once order was restored and the political system reshaped to Beijing’s satisfaction, such pressures would ease.

It would then be left to the courts to clarify and narrow the scope of the broad security law, aligning it with the city’s constitutional protection of human rights. They have made a start. But last month’s “interpretation” of that law by China’s top legislature has raised new questions.